This is a feeble attempt to jot down a few thoughts while they're fresh on my mind.
Life is moving very, very quickly it feels in the Howard Household these days. On Tuesday, Lucy was at her first Middle School experience with Band Jumpstart. She decided to play the tuba and has been practicing it ever since. Unfortunately she's picked up a little cold which she's fighting at the moment. Also on Tuesday, Molly and Sabrina were at another rehearsal for Ryle Marching Band. They're coming home late at night all revved up from their day with band kids so getting them settled back down in time for bed is quite a chore. While Lucy was at middle school and Molly & Sabrina were at high school, Clara had her college orientation on Tuesday evening. She's attending dual credit classes this fall - three of them in fact. So in addition to a job and attending high school she's taking 9 credit hours. I can't remember the classes she's taking but I believe one of them is history and the other might be English. She's dual enrolled at both Thomas More and Gateway for the fall semester.
So Lucy's at the middle school, Molly and Sabrina are at the high school, Clara's getting oriented for college but where is Christopher?
Good question.
After World Youth Day ended on Sunday, August 6, Chris caught a flight the following morning from Lisbon to Paris. For some reason they didn't make their connecting flight in Paris so they had to stay over a night at a hotel provided by the airline. While in Paris he visited the Eifel Tower, the Arc de Triumph and then headed back to the hotel to get some rest.
On Tuesday morning he awoke in Paris and split off from the rest of the group with another pilgrim and flew to Toronto where he was going to catch a flight to CVG. When he arrived in Toronto it was discovered that his co-traveler Emily didn't have a boarding pass and therefore couldn't get through security in time to catch the flight to CVG. He called me asking if he should get on the plane for CVG or stay with Emily. After some frantic conversations back and forth he and Emily concluded it was best for him to travel to CVG and she'd catch another flight the following day. We picked him up from the airport late Tuesday night and visited for a while before it was time for bed. Early on Wednesday morning I drove him up to UC in time for him to have second breakfast with the fellow UC Marching Band kids. (Side note - he remarked while walking through the wet grass toward the car that it was the first time his shoes had been wet in several days. The short walk through dew covered grass was very different from the days he spent walking on cobble stone or sandy pathways while in Portugal.)
We picked him up again on Wednesday evening and then dropped him off early on Thursday morning. Now it's Friday morning and again he was transported to UC for second breakfast with the expectation that he returns tonight after 9 p.m.
Speaking of the pickup from UC, Clara is insistent on getting enough driving hours because she needs about 7 more to qualify for her driver's test coming up on August 23. Last night she not only got 1.5 hours of drive time at night, she also learned a valuable lesson to never go down Vine Street after dark.
After attending Lucy's soccer game where she watched because of the cold she's been nursing, I dropped her off at home and picked up Clara for our evening's adventure. First we went to the gym to exercise and then around 8:15 pm we started making our trek up to UC with Clara behind the wheel. Sometimes she drives like a speed demon but most of the time she drives like a grandma. Nevertheless, driving to Clifton in the evening hours is a way to get real familiar real quick with driving. We motored through Cincinnati and stashed the Red RAV4 behind a large dumpster while we waited for the band kids to finish their evening practice. I snapped this photo because I was trying to play "Where's Waldo" in spotting my boy. His section had already completed their evening exercises and as a result he was walking down the sideline getting ready to head out of the stadium. I've taken the liberty of circling him in blue for you to see him more quickly than I did.
He walked up the long trek to the band room with Clara joining in. I believe he introduced her to several of his new friends while I patiently waited outside in the middle of the road with the Rav ready to return to Union. They emerged and I jumped out of the seat to let Captain Clara take over. We proceeded to navigate Clifton after dark and unfortunately took a wrong turn. I instinctively knew we shouldn't be traveling down Vine Street after dark but I trusted that my iPhone would carry us to safety. There were a few spats between Clara and myself over whether she could read or even see the street signs for I 75 leading out to the interstate but all in all it worked out just fine.
So like I said, life has gone pretty quickly these last few days and I don't think it's going to slow down anytime soon. But I wouldn't trade it for anything
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